Against All Odds, 2025 Week Three: Tepid

The English language is amazing. Certain words exist that go far beyond simple sounds that represent concepts. Those words also somehow capture the feelings behind those concepts. Some of the better words in this category describe situations which are decidedly average, yet somehow both more and less.

A classic example is the word "moist." It doesn't mean "wet," and it doesn't mean "dry." It means something in-between that (unless it is in the context of cake) is somehow worse than both. Moist. It evokes a gross feeling of mild dampness. If you say the word "moist" over and over again, it loses its meaning entirely and leaves the speaker feeling oddly unsettled.

You just tried it, didn't you? See what I mean?

Another word that I would place in this category perfectly describes my current feelings about Michigan State football. That word is "tepid." 

The Oxford dictionary's first definition of tepid is "(especially of a liquid) only slightly warm; lukewarm." The second definition is "showing little enthusiasm."

In principle, the Spartans are off to a hot 3-0 start after three games. While that is certainly a good thing, all the wins had a certain lackluster nature. Michigan State played a poor second half against Western Michigan and just gave up three touchdowns to an FCS opponent. 

The win over Boston College was exciting. But the Eagles laid an egg in a loss to a not-very-good Stanford team late Saturday night. That result has had a chilling effect on my opinion about the closeness of the Spartans' win in Week Two.

Western Michigan also failed to score a point in a blowout loss at Illinois this weekend. That result also gives me pause.

Honestly, the narrow 17-point margin of victory over Youngstown State does not worry me so much. I spent a lot of time in this week's Bad Betting Advice preview warning fans that the game was going to be closer than expected. The Penguins have a tough, well-coached team that would likely be competitive in the MAC. There are several FBS teams that I believe would lose to Youngtown State on a neutral field.

But it was the rash of injuries on Saturday afternoon to players like Nick Marsh, Makhi Frazier, and Luka Vincic which has left me a bit cold and concerned. We saw what a steady accumulation of injuries did to the team last year. We don't want to see that movie again.

So, after three weeks of football in East Lansing, I am personally feeling tepid about the current trajectory of the season. That said, there is still plenty of time for Spartans to catch fire and get hot. 

But there is also a chance that the season could end up feeling like a can of Vernors left out on the counter overnight: the taste might be OK, but it's undeniably lukewarm and a more than a bit flat.

Week Three Betting Results

Now it's time to review the results of last week's hot takes from my Bad Betting Advice article, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1. More information about how to read this figure can be found in the Week One edition of Against All Odds.

Figure 1: Results of Week Three showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.

A total of eight hot teams are in the overachiever category in Week Three: Michigan, North Texas, East Carolina, Louisiana Tech, Miami, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Memphis. Two teams experienced the chill of underachievement yet still won: Texas and Buffalo. 

A total of 13 teams took frigid upset losses in Week Three. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.

Table 1: Upsets in Week Three based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.

The biggest upsets of the weekend were New Mexico's dismantling of UCLA (-14), Delaware's upset of UConn (-11), and Stanford's late-night win over Boston College (-10.5). Other notable upsets include Old Dominion over Virginia Tech (-7.5), Texas A&M over Notre Dame (-6.5), Georgia Tech over Clemson (-5.5), Vanderbilt over South Carolina (-5), West Virginia over Pittsburgh (-3.5), and California over Minnesota (-1.5).

Both computers continued to be on a heater this week. My algorithm went 5-4 (56%) which brings the year to-date-performance to 12-8 (60%). ESPN's FPI was 3-3 (50%) for the week, bringing its year-to-date tally to 8-11 (42%). Both machines are performing above the benchmark of 40%.

Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the opening spread.

Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks against the spread for Week Three.

My algorithm went a blazing 4-3 (57%) for the second week in a row. As a result, the year-to-date performance sits at 8-6 (also 57%). My analysis of the FPI data resulted in a 3-2 record for the week (60%) which brings the year-to-date results to 17-11 (61%).

Overall, for the week my computer went 25-22 (53%) against the spread (ATS), bringing the year-to-date total to 68-77 (47%). The FPI was a little better overall at 28-19 (60%) and for the year is 77-68 (53%).

Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week Three.

Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under") for Week Three

My point total suggestions have been ice cold so far this year, but the results of Week Three may signal a warming trend. The lock picks went 3-1 (75%) which brings the year-to-date total to 8-12 (40%). The complete set of recommended point-total bets went 13-9 (59%) and that brings the overall tally to 36-50 (42%) for the year.

Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins

Following the results of Week Three, I have re-run the full season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, to update the season odds for each team. Table 4 below gives the update for the Big Ten conference and Table 5 shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.

Note that all the rankings listed in the table and in the text below refer to my computer's power rankings and not any of the national polls.